Secrets in the Memory Museum
by Chaos Inventor
Summary: The Memory Museum is a strange place. Some of those memories should just stay buried.
1. Caught Red Handed

_(A/N: Apparently, everything I write is Humour/Drama with a little Fantasy thrown in. ALSO, Dunhill is probably my favourite HM character ever! Sorry, on with the story...)_

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Dunhill stood behind the counter in the Memory Museum, thinking about how much his legs ached from staying still for so long.

Nobody stopped by the museum, except that farmer, and that was a rare occurrence.

Dunhill was checking the lens of his camera out of boredom, when the door to the museum opened.

He looked up, intrigued as to who his visitor might be. It was Tina, the girl who delivered the newspaper.

"Hello there, Tina! Do you want to look at some photos?" Dunhill asked.

"Yeah sure," she replied and walked over to the counter.

Dunhill got out the usual scrapbook of photos and Tina looked through them.

Slowly, the expression on her face changed from general pleasantness to confusion.

"Wait a moment," she said and then left the museum.

Dunhill waited. He didn't have anything else to do, after all.

When Tina got back, she brought with her a crowd of people who looked just as confused and suspicious as she did.

The crowd was made up of mostly of youths; Rod, Felicity, Iroha, Allen, Neil, Soseki, Michelle, Sanjay, Amir, Yuri. Even the Witch Princess was there.

 _Oh crap,_ Dunhill thought. _They're on to me._

The group ran over to look through all the photos Dunhill had in the museum.

"Why does he have pictures of all of us?" Allen spoke up first.

"When did he take this?" Felicity wondered.

"This is in my house! Did he break into my house to take this photo?!" Neil snapped.

They all turned to Dunhill. He was sneaking out the front door.

"GET HIM!" Tina shouted.

Dunhill bolted out the door as the youths chased him.

The chase went on for a little while.

Dunhill barged into the restaurant and ran up to Clement.

"Clement! You've got to help me! I need a place to hide!" Dunhill yelped.

Clement shrugged and pointed at a large, obvious-looking-place-to-hide pot.

Dunhill leapt inside and Clement put the lid on top.

Shortly after, the group of youths all charged into the restaurant as well.

They looked around a bit and then Felicity asked, "Have you seen Dunhill?"

"Ummm..." Clement murmured.

He was very clearly going to blow Dunhill's cover, but it didn't matter, because the pot was moving.

The group after him looked over and knew instantly he was inside. They walked over and Neil took the lid off.

Immediately, Dunhill jumped out and tried to make a run for it again.

"GET HIM!" Tina shouted again.

This time, most of the group managed to get a hold of him before he could flee the restaurant.

"Uhhhhhhmmmmm..." Clement murmured.

"We should interrogate him somewhere else. And we need rope to tie him up," Rod said.

"I've got something better than rope. Let's take him to my house," Michelle said.

The group transported Dunhill to Michelle's house.

Michelle went through her things and pulled out a pair of handcuffs which she shackled him into.

"Um... are those handcuffs for a magic trick?" Rod asked.

"...Yes! Yes, they are!" Michelle replied, frantically.

Everybody shut up. Those handcuffs... were definitely not for a magic trick.

"Anyway... we need to get some answers out of Dunhill," Tina said, getting them back on track.

"Are you going to tell us what we want to know? Or are you going to make this tough?" Allen asked.

"I'll never tell you anything," Dunhill replied.

"Then we'll just have to employ torture," Amir said simply.

"Woah, what?! Also, what do you know about torture?" Tina questioned.

"A prince knows certain things," Amir answered.

"But _torture_?" Tina asked.

"How about I just whip up a truth serum?" the Witch Princess suggested.

The rest of the group looked at each other and decided this was the safest option.

The Witch Princess ran back to her house to get started.

While she was gone, the rest of them wondered what they should do with Dunhill.

"Well, we could just leave him here. A few of us could stay and keep an eye on him. Then when the Witch Princess gets back, we'll go get everyone together again," Soseki suggested.

"Who wants to stay?" Tina asked.

"This is my house, so I'm staying," Michelle said.

Quite a few others said they needed to get back to work.

"I don't have anything to do right now, so I'll stay," Amir said.

"Then I'll stay as well," Sanjay added.

"Oh, and all my work's done for the day, so I'll stick around," Tina said.

Everyone else started leaving the house then, to get back to work.

Tina turned and watched Soseki leaving at the end, and said to him, "Hey, you don't have any work, do you?"

"No, no work at all," he replied, grinned and left.

"...That guy..." Tina muttered.

"What should we do while we wait?" Amir asked.

"Well, how about-" Dunhill began but was interrupted by Tina snapping, "He wasn't asking you!"

"Why don't we play Eye Spy?" Sanjay suggested.

Amir looked around Michelle's house. Oh god. The pink. It was so pink. "That's the worst idea I've ever heard!" he replied.

"...Okay," Sanjay whispered sadly.

"Meanie!" Michelle snapped at Amir.

"OKAY, how about we play a game called "Who Can Stay Quiet The Longest?"" Tina suggested.

Everyone shut their mouths.

 _10 seconds later…_

"But seriously, who the hell wants to play Eye Spy?!" Amir shouted.

Sanjay whimpered.

Michelle was about to open her mouth and shout at Amir again, but the front door opened and they all looked over.

The Witch Princess was there and she asked, "Where did everyone go?"

"Oh thank god you're back," Tina murmured.

"I didn't say the truth serum would take a long time," the Witch Princess said.

"I'll go get everyone then!" Tina said and ran out of the house.

She collected the rest of the group and they all headed back to interrogate Dunhill.

The Witch Princess took her truth serum potion and forced the contents down Dunhill's throat.

"Okay… Now tell us, why do you have all those pictures of us?" Tina asked.

"I took those pictures with my camera," Dunhill replied.

"Why did you take those pictures of us without our permission?" Tina rephrased.

"Because you all looked so happy in those moments," Dunhill explained.

"Okay… **how** did you take those pictures of us without us knowing?!" Tina demanded.

Dunhill fell silent for a moment. He took a deep breath. And then he began his story…


	2. Dunhill's Memory

_I was just a boy. My dad said he was going to pick me up from school. But he never showed up._

"Woah, woah, we don't want to know your life story!" Allen snapped.

"We just want to know "how did you take those pictures of us without us knowing?"" Iroha repeated carefully.

"But I'm telling you!" Dunhill explained.

"Oh dear… It seems like he'll have to tell us a LOT in order to explain," the Witch Princess sighed.

"...Fine. Get on with your story," Tina grumbled.

 _I was waiting there, outside the school gates, long after all the other kids had gone home._

 _I waited long after the sun had set._

 _Eventually, I realised nobody was coming to get me._

 _My parents never arrived. My teachers and the other students hadn't even cared._

 _I just sat outside the school until night had fallen._

 _And then I stood up. I didn't know how to get home, but I figured I'd try and walk there._

 _I walked and walked and walked in no direction in particular._

 _I looked around, hoping to see something familiar, something that would lead me back home…_

 _And then I saw… it… It was… a camera… lying on the side of the road._

Dunhill gestured with his head to the camera around his neck. Apparently, the camera he was talking about was the one he had with him, the one he was still using to this day.

 _I had never seen a camera before in my life. I went over and picked it up. I studied it._

 _My life changed the moment I picked up that camera._

 _Years and years passed, of me just taking pictures of everything I saw. Moments to turn into memories. But something always irked me._

 _I took so many pictures, but everyone in them seemed to ignore me. Like I was invisible._

 _Just like my father had forgotten me all those years ago, so did everyone I met._

 _Everyone eventually forgot about me, whether it was after minutes or years._

 _Everyone forgot me. My parents forgot me. Even my wife forgot me after we'd been married for so long. She just looked up one day and didn't see me there._

 _I realised… I really was invisible. I went to places without anyone noticing me. Took pictures without anyone noticing me._

 _Had it always been like this? I wasn't sure… but it probably was._

 _I didn't want to be lost to time forever. So I kept on taking pictures. Even though nobody knew I was there. I took pictures of other people's lives._

 _I followed people and captured their happiness, their misery, their lives in film._

 _And so I did with all of you._

There was silence after that. A long silence.

"Huh? Is that the end of the story?" Tina asked.

Dunhill nodded his head.

"Wait, so… there are more pictures?" Soseki asked.

Dunhill nodded his head again.

"Well? Hand over the photos, you pervert!" Michelle snapped.

"I don't have them with me. There are way too many," Dunhill replied.

"...How many?" Yuri asked.

"I've been taking pictures of all of you long before you came to Echo Village," Dunhill replied.

Everyone in the room felt a shiver run down their spine.

"What?" Neil murmured.

"I have pictures from every moment of your lives. Even the moments you want to forget," Dunhill said.

Everyone in the room jumped. They each immediately thought of something they wanted to forget. They shook their heads of this memory and tried to focus on the present.

"If you ever want to remember… and face your past… come to the Memory Museum," Dunhill advised.

Nobody wanted to face their past. They all murmured nervously to themselves and started to leave Michelle's house.

Finally they had all exited, except Dunhill and the Witch Princess.

"But I'm much, much older than you. How could you have taken pictures from every moment of my life?" the Witch Princess questioned.

"It is true, that you are older than me. But some people live outside the barriers of time and space. I am… clearly one of those people. I have pictures of the worst moments in your life," Dunhill said.

He looked at the Witch Princess with such pity then that she was horrified by the truth in his eyes.

She took the handcuffs off of him and left the house quickly.

Dunhill stood up himself then and headed back for the Memory Museum.

* * *

 _(A/N: I might pick this story up again later. But I should really focus on my SoS story... If you want me to continue this, I'd like to know!)_


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